Spirit's right-rear wheel stalled again on Sol 2099 (Nov. 28, 2009) during the first step of a two-step extrication maneuver. This stall is different in some characteristics from the stall on Sol 2092 (Nov. 21).

NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter put itself into a safe standby mode on Saturday, Nov. 28, and the team operating the spacecraft has begun implementing careful steps designed to resume Odyssey's science and relay operations within about a week.

Spirit experienced a wheel stall with the right-rear wheel during the second step of a two-step drive on Sol 2092 (Saturday, Nov. 21). This is not the same wheel that stalled on Sol 1899 (May 6), the left-middle wheel.

The preliminary results from the first extrication drive for Spirit on Sol 2088 (Nov. 17, 2009) indicate the rover stopped less than 1 second after it began, sensing more vehicle lateral tilt than permitted.

Driving commands are being prepared to instruct Spirit to attempt to drive forward. These are the first driving commands since Spirit became embedded in a Martian sandtrap approximately six months ago.

Students in fourth through seventh grade will work to create the ultimate baseball experience "on Mars," even designing the rules for how to play a game on the Red Planet. NASA and JPL have partnered with the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum to host a workshop for kids on Sat., Nov. 7, in Cooperstown, N.Y.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed frozen water hiding just below the surface of mid-latitude Mars. The spacecraft's observations were obtained from orbit after meteorites excavated fresh craters on the Red Planet.

New, three-dimensional imaging of Martian north-polar ice layers by a radar instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is consistent with theoretical models of Martian climate swings during the past few million years.

During analysis of four safe-mode events this year, engineers for NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project have identified a vulnerability to the effects of subsequent events. They are currently developing added protection to eliminate this vulnerability while they continue analysis of the string of incidents this year in which the spacecraft has spontaneously rebooted its computer or switched to a backup computer.

Thousands of newly released images from more than 1,500 telescopic observations by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show a wide range of gullies, dunes, craters, geological layering and other features on the Red Planet.

During analysis of four safe-mode events this year, engineers for NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project have identified a vulnerability to the effects of subsequent events. They are currently developing added protection to eliminate this vulnerability while they continue analysis of the string of incidents this year in which the spacecraft has spontaneously rebooted its computer or switched to a backup computer.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter put itself into a safe mode Wednesday morning, Aug. 26, for the fourth time this year, while maintaining spacecraft health and communications. While in safe mode, the spacecraft has limited activities pending further instructions from ground controllers.

The amount of electricity generated by the solar panels on Spirit has been declining for the past several Martian days, or sols, as a regional dust storm moved southward and blocked some of the sunshine at Spirit's location.

Just as baseball players must train together before the season starts, the science team for "Curiosity" must be in top shape to operate the rover's 10 science instruments when it lands on Mars in 2012.

If you’re like me, you may have received an e-mail this summer telling you go outside on August 27 and look up in the sky. The e-mail, most likely forwarded to you by a friend or relative, promises that Mars will look as big as the moon on that date, and that no one will ever see this view again.

As the Mars rover team uses testing at JPL to evaluate possible ways to drive Spirit out of loose soil on Mars, the team is finishing tests of individual "building block" maneuvers and is about to begin stringing some of those together.

Engineers checking possible rover movements to get Spirit out of the "Troy" sand trap on Mars are evaluating how a comparable rover at JPL fares in a crablike backward drive, with all four corner wheels turned 60 degrees toward the right.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, has finished building and testing the heat shield for protecting the Curiosity rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory project. This heat shield is even larger than the ones used for protecting Apollo astronauts as they returned to Earth.

On June 29 and 30 the NASA Associate Administrator for Science (Ed Weiler) and ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration (David Southwood) met in Plymouth, England, to establish a way for a progressive program for exploration of the Red Planet. The outcome of the bilateral meeting was an agreement to create a Mars Exploration Joint Initiative (MEJI) that will provide a framework for the two agencies to define and implement their scientific, programmatic and technological goals at Mars.

Favorable chemistry and episodes with thin films of liquid water during ongoing, long-term climate cycles may sometimes make the area where NASA's Phoenix Mars mission landed last year a favorable environment for microbes.

The Mars Science Laboratory rover will sport the biggest, toughest robotic arm the red planet's ever seen! This super-limb must lift 34 kilograms (almost 75 pounds) of instruments to reach out and test martian rocks and soil, which may hold clues about whether Mars could have supported life.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is examining Mars again with its scientific instruments after successfully transitioning out of a precautionary standby mode triggered by an unexpected June 3 rebooting of its computer.

Twelve-year-old Clara Ma flew from Kansas to JPL to meet and sign the next rover that will zoom millions of miles to Mars. The trip is Clara's prize for winning an essay contest in which she named the rover "Curiosity."

A new image of Spirit's underbelly is helping engineers assess the rover's current state and plan her escape from soft soil. The panoramic mosaic of multiple images was taken by the microscopic imager instrument at the end of Spirit's robotic arm--the first time that imager has been used to assess the underside and wheels of the rover.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover, scheduled for launch in 2011, has a new name, thanks to a sixth-grade student from Kansas. Twelve-year-old Clara Ma from the Sunflower Elementary school in Lenexa submitted the winning entry, "Curiosity."

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover, scheduled for launch in 2011, has a new name, thanks to a sixth-grade student from Kansas. Twelve-year-old Clara Ma from the Sunflower Elementary school in Lenexa submitted the winning entry, "Curiosity."

A theme of Mars exploration is "Follow the Water," since understanding the history of water on our planetary neighbor will help us understand if there were environments favorable for life to occur and how climate has changed over time.

After three days of completing Earth-commanded activities without incident last week, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit had a bout of temporary amnesia Friday, April 17, and rebooted its computer Saturday, April 18, behavior similar to events about a week earlier.

This nearly global mosaic of observations made by the Mars Color Imager on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on April 2, 2009, shows billowing clouds of dust being lifted into the atmosphere by a storm near the edge of the seasonal polar cap of southern Mars.

On a plain that stretches for miles in every direction, the panoramic camera on NASA's Mars rover Opportunity has caught a first glimpse on the horizon of the uplifted rim of the big crater that has been Opportunity's long-term destination for six months.

NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter properly followed commands today to shut down and restart, a strategy by its engineers to clear any memory flaws accumulated in more than five years since Odyssey's last reboot.

The team operating NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter postponed a planned rebooting of the spacecraft this morning after seeing an unexpected rise in the temperature of a star camera that is part of the navigation system.

Loose soil piled against the northern edge of a low plateau called "Home Plate" has blocked NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit from taking the shortest route toward its southward destinations for the upcoming Martian summer and following winter.

Unique fractures in lavas on ancient Mars suggest water occasionally flooded portions of the planet's surface. The fractures, known as "columnar joints", are the first that have been observed on a planet other than Earth.

This near-infrared image from the framing camera on NASA's Dawn spacecraft was taken near the point of closest approach to Mars on Feb. 17, 2009, during Dawn's gravity assist flyby. The image, taken for calibration purposes, shows a portion of the fretted and cratered northwest margin of Tempe Terra, Mars.

A small but important uptick in electrical output from the solar panels on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit this month indicates a beneficial Martian wind has blown away some of the dust that has accumulated on the panels.

The team operating NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit plans diagnostic tests this week after Spirit did not report some of its weekend activities, including a request to determine its orientation after an incomplete drive.

Mars today is a world of cold and lonely deserts, apparently without life of any kind, at least on the surface. Worse still, it looks like Mars has been cold and dry for billions of years, with an atmosphere so thin, any liquid water on the surface quickly boils away while the sun's ultraviolet radiation scorches the ground.

NASA Ames Research Center invites news reporters to participate in a NASA science update at 11 a.m. PST, Thursday, Jan. 15. The briefing will take place in the James E. Webb Memorial Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington and air live on NASA Television.

Summer turned to autumn for the Phoenix Mars Lander on December 26, 2008. This image, taken on December 21 by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows the lander during the last waning days of northern hemisphere summer.